Has anybody noticed this one already? http://www.aulis.com/skeleton.html

With some number juggling he arrives at about 50 seconds being available for every surface photo during the Apollo missions, and "[a]ny professional photographer will tell you it cannot be done".

I see he doesn't use a factor 2 to allow for 2 astronauts on the surface? 8-[

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Jack's calculations are pretty much equal to how Nasascam calculated orbit times.

Man alive, that guy makes some strange claims!

I was a professional photographer for 15 years and I couldn't back up his claim that his assumed rate of picture-taking is impossible, especially with two astronauts on the job. Many of their photos were stereo pairs taken only seconds apart. Occasionally they did a number of stereo pairs of just one rock.

Sometimes when I was photographing weddings or other public functions, because I could take two photos in much less than a second, people would come up to me and say, "Man, you're fast! Where is your winder?" In reply I would grin and hold up my right thumb.

I used a Canon EF, and its winder had a large stand-off and a short throw. When the shutter was cocked I could actually put pressure on the winder and still press the shutter, which allowed me to very quickly recock the shutter. Not all cameras allow that. I actually tried winders and found them far too slow.

Anyway, to get this back on topic, I can also say that from my experience doing the same work, another of White's claims is false. This is the one where he says something about it being impossible to take two photos with a hand-held camera and have exactly the same background in the photos. I got so hacked off at pairs of these photos being indistinguishable (people in them often didn't have time to move or change their expressions) that I taught myself to slightly turn the camera between shots so that the backgrounds at the edge of the frames differed.

I find it really hard to believe that Jack White was also a professional photographer. He seems to know so little about the effects of different exposures that I wonder if I could have a decent discussion with him about Ansel Adams' Zone System.

Few photographers can, whether pro or amateur. As a large-format hobbiest, I learned the Zone System, but I found that mention of it to most professional photographers (outside of those with like interest) was answered with blank stares.

I was a military photographer, so I know from experiance that once the shutter and exposure are set, you can snap off a lot of pictures. Its not like take a picture and spent 51 seconds readjusting your settings. If I'm not mistaken, the astronauts had been trained so it wasn't as if they had never seen a camera before, or had they?

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I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

They were extensively trained.

I am not a professional photographer, but I am a very experienced amateur. Within five minutes of being handed an Apollo-modified Hasselblad camera I had identified the controls, understood how they worked, and was ready to shoot photos.

The general plan was to set the shutter to 1/250 and leave it there. Exposure control was to be done with f-stop, choosing f/5.6 through f/11 as suggested by the exposure guide printed on the magazine. Focus adjustment was according to the detents, corresponding to depth-of-field zones. For later missions, the nearest detent corresponded to the length of the tool handle. You had three zone detents plus infinity.

Fundamentally for each photograph you only have two parameters to think about: f-stop and focus. Focus is a choice between three detents: "near" "medium" and "far". F-stop is a choice between "bright" "medium" and "dim". Not hard at all.

Professional photographs often spend lots of time fussing over exposure settings and light measurements. This is because they simply work differently than documentary photographers. The astronauts were working more like journalistic photographers than studio photographers. Studio photographers can afford to take the time and measure everything down to the last iota of photochemical response. Documentary photographers develop tricks to get acceptable results, if not optimal results, in a short time and with a minimum of fuss.

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

If you watch the National Geographic special on the moon hoax, the one with Jay in it, they have a short interview with Dick Underwood, who trained the astronauts on the cameras and he explains that not only did they train the astronauts, they told them to take the cameras home and practice taking photos.

The thing that bugs me about White's claim is that he says he referred to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal to get an idea of the number of photos taken on the various missions, but then ignores the information the site provides on the timing of these photos. That looks like some fairly wilful blindness.

He also ignores the little time required to take 12-photo, 360-degree panoramas. And he's completely wrong with the idea that the astronauts couldn't take photos during their rover drives.

Something else which just occurred to me is the absurdity of White's time and motion study.

Essentially he totals up the time of each Apollo moonwalk, subtracts time taken for other activities, and divides the remaining time by the number of photos taken to work out the number of photos the astronauts have to take each minute.

The point is, once he's removed the assumed time taken for ALL the other activities, what other activities are left but taking photos? In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if White UNDERestimated the amount of time taken for the other activities.

It's a bit like saying that if you subtract all the time you spend working, sleeping, cleaning up and watching the TV, you've got to fit all your eating into the remaining time in your life. #-o

I went through A11 and did a timeline. Here is what i posted at the ED forum:

White has produced what he calls irrefutable evidence that the Apollo photography was faked with his latest “research” he calls a “TIME STUDY”. Well folks its neither irrefutable nor a time study. Its easy to refute and its nothing more than assumption and false logic.

White wants the reader to believe that he has rigorously scoured the official record of Apollo at the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal, accurately summarized each EVA, accurately calculated the amount of time required for the tasks on each EVA,, accurately applied the results of this “time study” to the amount of photography produced during the EVA and finally accurately concluded the amount of photography was impossible based on his study. He states the Apollo Photographic record is false.

A reader might conclude from Whites words that it was a lot of work to find out all the details of each mission to prepare an accurate time study of their activities from which to base his figures and maths. And the reader would have been right had White actually done a “time study” of each mission. It is hard. One is required to read the actual transcripts and plot a detailed time line of the astronauts activities, including taking photographs. One would actually need to find out, for example how long it took the astronauts to take “pan photographs” which are a series of 8-10 images taken while the astronaut turns 360 degrees. It would be tedious work, but it would be required to actual do a proper time study to see if the astronauts could have taken the number of photographs on the lunar surface as stated by NASA.

Each mission transcript is many pages long as it details every conversation between the astronauts themselves and as well as with earth. It also includes post flight debriefing information to help the reader further understand what was happening. it’s a daunting task to sift through the transcripts and find the real information. I looked at Apollo 11, the briefest of all the EVA’s. My heavily excerpted summary of the mission transcript ran 12 pages and took me the better part of two evenings.. Imagine the work required to summarize all of the Apollo EVA’s. Some of the missions lasted over three days on the lunar surface.

Of course White did none of that. He simply guessed and called it a “time study” In short he did what he always does in regard to his Apollo “research”, he didn’t actually do any research.

Here’s an excerpt of Whites work as it applies to Apollo 11:

Grave doubt exists that the Apollo missions to the Moon were anything more than the most incredible hoax of all time. Did astronauts actually go to the Moon? I do not know. But NASA's own evidence shows that all photos of the Apollo feats had to be forgeries. They were likely made in a secret Earthly studio somewhere as a top secret military project. And if all the "Moon photos" of all the "Moon missions" were fakes, the question is 'why?'.
Real missions should have produced real photos.

Anyone with even elemental math skills and common sense can look at the facts, do the calculations, and come to their own conclusions about the alleged MASSIVE VOLUME of lunar surface photography in such a LIMITED TIME.
Here is my conclusion: IT COULD NOT BE DONE

Very simply, it amounts to a study known to many businesses...A TIME AND MOTION STUDY. The elementary question is: was it possible to take the known number of photos (from NASA records) in the amount of time available (from NASA records)?

Here is my actual count of EVA photos of the six missions:
Apollo 11........... 121

So I returned to the Lunar Surface Journal to find how much TIME was available to do all the scientific tasks AS WELL AS PHOTOGRAPHY. Unlike the number of photos, this information is readily available:
Apollo 11..........1 EVA, 2 hours, 31 minutes .......(151 minutes)

Apollo 11..........Inspect EM for damage, deploy flag, unpack and deploy radio and television equipment, operate the TV camera (360 degree pan), establish contact with Earth (including ceremonial talk with President Nixon), unpack and deploy numerous experiment packages, find/document/collect 47.7 pounds of lunar rock samples, walk to various locations, conclude experiments, return to LEM.

Let's arbitrarily calculate a MINIMUM time for these tasks and subtract from available photo time:
Apollo 11....subtract 2 hours (120 minutes), leaving 31 minutes for taking photos

So do the math:
Apollo 11.......121 photos in 31 minutes..............3.90 photos per minute

Or, to put it more simply:
Apollo 11........one photo every 15 seconds

The first thing you will notice about Whites work is that he got his summary of the EVA wrong. He didn’t even get the order of events correct, which leads me to believe he never consulted the transcript. Not a good start for a “time study”

Lets break down the Apollo 11 eva in approximately 15 minute segments and see what the astronauts did and how many photos they took. The reader should note I have used the exact same source material as did White:
http://history.nasa.gov/alsj/frame.html

Start of the EVA.
Armstrong exit’s the LM, deploying the mesa and the TV camera before he climbs down the ladder. Once he is on the surface Aldrin lowers the camera.
He takes no pictures

Second segment
Armstrong takes his first pictures, a pan. He takes a contingentency soil sample and then photographs Aldrin climbing down to the surface. They both test moving on the lunar surface.
20 pictures are taken.

Third segment
They both continue to test their mobility . Armstrong takes some various photos. They investigate the blast area under the engine and the touchdown probes. Armstrong removes the thermal blanket on the Mesa in preparation for moving the TV camera.. Armstrong moves the TV camera while Aldrin begins to unpack the solar wind experiment.
2 pictures are taken.

Forth segment.
Aldrin sets up the Solar wind experiment while Armstrong returns form setting up the TV camera and takes pictures of Aldrin with the SWE.. They plant the US flag. They talk to the president.
4 pictures are taken.

Fifth segment.
They finish their call from the president. They discuss the lighting and the effects of sun and shade on their temperature inside of the spacesuits. Pictures are taken of the soil and boot prints.
Aldrin takes his first series of pan photos, using the camera handheld rather than mounted to his suit.
17 pictures are taken.

Sixth segment.
Aldrin takes some inspection photos of the LM. Armstrong takes a bulk soil sample. Armstrong gets the camera back and takes pictures of the plaque. Armstrong takes photos of his bulk sample area. He takes the famous picture of Aldrin. Aldrin takes the camera back and takes another pan series. Armstrong takes photos with the Gold camera. These photos are not counted as EVA Hasselblad photos.
25 pictures were taken.

Seventh segment.
Armstrong continues to inspect the LM. Aldrin returns from his pan location and takes a few photos of the footpads and the area under the engine. He takes two pictures showing earth by taking his camera off of the bracket and hand holding it. Armstrong get the camera back and Aldrin goes to work on the Scientific Equipment bay. Aldrin deploys the PSE. Armstrong does another pan series. Aldrin carries the experiments out to the location where they will be set up. Armstrong takes pictures.
29 pictures were taken.

Eighth segment.
Aldrin and Armstrong finish deploying the experiments. Armstrong takes photos of the experiments. Armstrong goes out to East Crater to take a pan series. Aldrin continues to work on the experiments. Armstrong takes a few more pictures of Aldrin working at the experiments.
19 pictures were taken.

Ninth segment.
Armstrong and Aldrin close out the EVA. Aldrin climbs up into the LM and Armstrong passes sample and the film up to the LM. Just before Armstrong sends the Hasselblad film magazine up he fires off six random frames to assure that his last pan images don’t get light struck when he removes the magazine. Armstrong climbs the ladder, enters the LM and the EVA is over.
6 pictures were taken.

The first thing we notice is that for this mission there were 4 segments where the work load was such that either no pictures were taken or less than 6 pictures were taken. That’s a bit over 1 hour of time where only 12 photographs were taken. White suggests in his study that the work load was such that there should have been two hours with no photography.

Lets lay it out simply, the segments and the number of photos:

1. 0 photos
2. 20 photos
3. 2 photos
4. 4 photos
5. 17 photos
6. 25 photos
7. 29 photos
8. 19 photos
9. 6 photos

Its pretty clear from this summary that the Apollo 11 astronauts DID NOT have to take 3.9 photos per minute as White claims. His theory has been refuted.

So it seems White has been hoisted on his own petard. The skeletons in his closet have been reveled. It has been shown that he did no actual time study but rather did a “guess study “ He has failed to properly research the subject before jumping off the deep end, as usual..

John Costella on White’s time study:
"Apollo debates are usually dominated by physics arguments which can be confusing for most people. Jack White's new analysis is breath-taking in its simplicity: now anyone can understand the evidence and come to their own conclusion."

Sorry John, but its more like the analysis from a simpleton. Yes we can understand the evidence and come to our own conclusion. White failed in miserably in his attempt to prove the Apollo photography fake. Whites latest work speaks volumes about him and those touting his latest work.

So you the reader can now decide. Does the rest of White’s “time study” hold water, or is it full of holes like his Apollo 11 summary?

And now its White’s turn. You want to make this theory work you are going to have to go back to square one and actually do a time study of each mission. Na…never gonna happen.

Excellent work, Craig!

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"Facts are stubborn things." --John Adams
Clavius Moon Base

Great job! =D> =D> =D> =D>

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Living on Earth may be expensive, but it includes an annual free trip around the Sun.

I've always been amazed at how much they were able to accomplish in the brief time they spent on the moon.

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I'm not a scientist, but I play one on the internet.
http://www.rrac.org

Practice has a LOT to do with it.

If I'd spend multiple months practicing many details of just a few hours of my life, I'd be able to do a lot in them .

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To the regular visitor of internet bulletin boards it is clear that it's an excellent idea your parents get to choose your real name.

Bravo, infocusinc. =D>

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"I'd take the awe of understanding over the awe of ignorance any day." - Douglas Adams

You truly have the spirit of Jay within you.

In fact, I'm going to go to ALSJ and read stuff.

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Freedom For Fission A breath of fresh Iodine-131

And no-one mentions all the work I have done in disproving all Jack Whites individual Apollo claims on that same site.

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"For ignorance to reign, all it takes is for knowledgable people to say nothing"

Lonewulf

And no-one mentions all the work I have done in disproving all Jack Whites individual Apollo claims on that same site.
You have done a fantastic job there! It's compulsive reading for me every morning. Someone has given "A Masterclass in photo analysis" on that site and it's not Jack. Thanks for all your work.